17:42 UTC — Mid-Pacific, Day of the Clear Rune
The Starseam Pioneer cut a slow north-east tack, solar sails shimmering pink against the lengthening afternoon. Repairs were finished, meals devoured, but no one went below. An expectant quiet hung on deck, woven from yesterday's strange fracture in Cassie's lantern and the hush that had followed.
Aiden stood at the bow pulpit with binoculars held loosely, half watching waves, half listening for what the Loom might say next. Dawn-Core pulsed softly—still the color of dawn and knot-indigo, yet now laced by a hair-fine thread of pure translucence, as though glass had learned to hum.
Behind him, Maya calibrated a handheld spectrum imager. "The clear frequency is real," she muttered. "Not electromagnetic, not dream-band. It's emptier than anything we've measured, like the signal is transmitted in the space between numbers."
Lin Xi stopped his walking-meditation and smiled. "A silence that speaks."
Cassie cradled her restored lantern. She'd spent the morning etching that spiral fracture into the new lens on purpose, letting it wander until it closed itself. Now, when she opened the iris, dawn-peach bled outward then vanished into sheer transparency, leaving only refracted seawind. "Feels lighter," she whispered. "Almost weightless hope."
Nephis perched atop the yardarm, cloak slack. He called down: "Object to port. One point on the horizon. No sail, no wake."
The Vessel of Glass
Through binoculars, Aiden saw a speck—too bright for driftwood, too clean for scrap. As the Pioneer approached, the speck resolved into a skiff-sized craft, hull entirely translucent, riding the swell like a soap bubble that refused to pop. No running lights, no seams. Just glass and sun.
They hove to, lines ready, but the glass skiff glided in on its own trajectory, bumping hulls with a hollow chime. Its deck bore a single upright spindle of the same material, delicately spiraled.
Lin Xi placed a palm on the rail. "No dream resonance. No Council residue. Empty, yet… aware."
Maya scanned. "Zero circuitry, yet my reader pings a perfect checksum of nothing. That's impossible."
Nephis dropped to deck, touched the skiff. "Not glass," he said. "Condensed clear-thread. Solidified absence."
Cassie's lantern flickered, mirroring the spindle spiral. She inhaled and the light withdrew, glass brightened, and etched across the front a line of symbols—colorless but visible: a message.
Aiden read it aloud, voice hushed.
"YOU TAUGHT THE LOOM TO BREATHE. WE COME TO LEARN."
The Decision
Silence settled heavy. They exchanged glances—exhaustion, wonder, caution. Aiden felt weightless inside, like the night before a first flight. "There's room for two," he said, nodding at the skiff.
Maya raised an eyebrow. "Ambassadorial first contact in a craft made of nothing? Count me in."
Lin Xi bowed assent. "Emptiness is the truest teacher."
Cassie smiled, lantern glowing clear. "Hope floats."
Nephis merely gripped the skiff rail, cloak whispering yes.
They left the Pioneer on autopilot, locking Dawn-Core in its cradle with redundant seals. Then, one by one, they stepped onto the glass deck. The skiff barely dipped; instead, the spindle brightened, and the hull unfurled silent panels until it resembled a winged seed.
Windless, it began to move—no sail, no motor—sliding across water faster than any hydrofoil. Behind, the Pioneer dwindled, and north-west cloudbanks parted to reveal a corridor of perfect calm sea stretching toward a horizon no chart acknowledged.
Maya checked her watch. "Vector aims beyond Aleutian arc—into the Arctic gyre."
Aiden's pulse matched the silent spindle. "Clear-thread wants to meet at the top of the world."
Somewhere ahead, out past the ordinary edge of maps, the Loom's newborn frequency waited—for dialogue, for play, for next mistakes. And—Aiden believed—for another chance to weave flaw into wonder.
The skiff kept on, gathering translucent speed, until it and its passengers became a shimmer on the sea and the world behind them felt endearingly unfinished.